Escort West ** (1959, Victor Mature, Elaine Stewart, Faith Domergue) – Classic Movie Review 11,919

Director Francis D Lyon’s 1959 black and white CinemaScope Western film Escort West stars Victor Mature in an old, tediously over-familiar story about the former Confederate officer Ben Lassiter (Mature) and his 10-year-old daughter Abbey (Reba Waters) escorting the wagon train remnants after a battle.

Riding west to Nevada, they encounter sisters Beth and Martha Drury at a stagecoach rest stop. Lassiter then romances Beth Drury (Elaine Stewart), whose sister Martha Drury (Faith Domergue) hates rebel soldiers and is opposed to the affair. Then Lassiter becomes a hero when he has to rescue everybody. After Lassiter and his daughter ride off, Indians attack the rest stop, he doubles back and finds the sisters safe, and escorts them west.

Over-familiar, it may be, but the imaginative handling, the support acting (especially Noah Beery Jr, Rex Ingram, Leo Gordon, Harry Carey Jr, Slim Pickens and Roy Barcroft) and William H Clothier’s location photography lift it a notch above routine.

The cast are Victor Mature as Ben Lassiter, Reba Waters as Abbey Lassiter, Elaine Stewart as Beth Drury, Faith Domergue as Martha Drury, Noah Beery Jr as Lt Jamison, William Ching as Captain Howard Poole, Harry Carey J. as Trooper Travis, Slim Pickens as Corporal Wheeler, Rex Ingram as Nelson Walker, Leo Gordon as Trooper Vogel, Ken Curtis as Trooper Burch, X Brands as Tago, Roy Barcroft as Sgt Doyle, John Hubbard as Lt. Weeks, Claire Du Brey as Mrs Kate Fenniman, Syd Saylor as Elwood Fenniman, Chuck Hayward as Indian, Charles Soldani as Indian, Eddie Little Sky as Indian, and Claire Dubrey.

Released by United Artists on 23 January 1959, it is the second of two films by Batjac Productions and Romina Productions following China Doll (1958), also with Mature.

It is filmed on the Iverson Movie Ranch in Chatsworth, California, and on the nearby Bell Moving Picture Ranch, the site of which was identified in 2015 by footage from Escort West and Elvis Presley’s Love Me Tender, which filmed its climax at the same site, Rocky Hill.

It runs 76 minutes.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 11,919

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